Boy saved from the jaws of death

Mateus Pereira, 8, shows the stitches made after an anaconda bit him and, left, the snake after it was killed.Photo: AP

Dylan WelchFebruary 9, 2007 - 10:16AM

An eight-year-old boy was saved by his grandfather after a
five-metre anaconda in Brazil began to swallow him headfirst.

Local newspaper Bom Dia Rio Preto reported that Mateus Araujo
had been walking near a creek with his eight-year-old cousin Flavio
when they were attacked by the giant snake.

It bit Mateus in the chest and coiled about him. It then
attempted to swallow him head first.

Flavius ran to Mateus's 66-year-old grandfather Joaquim's
house.

Joaquim ran to the creekbed and found his grandson slowly being
eaten by the monster snake.

Joaquim attempted to free his half-devoured grandson by
attacking the serpent with a machete, and after a battle that Bom
Dia said took over half-an-hour, he managed to pull his son from
the anaconda's mouth.

The python was killed by locals afterwards, and Mateus received
several stitches to the right side of chest, where he had been
bitten.

Mateus, from Sao Paolo, had been visiting his grandfather's farm
in the municipality of Cosmorama, a small township about 400
kilometres north of Sao Paulo.